


Paint It, Black

by freeXwinonaXforever



Series: Time in a Bottle [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Complete, F/M, Graphic Description, Vietnam War, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-20 04:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18984934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freeXwinonaXforever/pseuds/freeXwinonaXforever
Summary: Joyce struggles after Hopper is deployed to Vietnam. Takes place between 1965 and 1968 and contains some strong language, graphic descriptions of war, and delves into some politics for the time period, so fair warning!





	Paint It, Black

**Author's Note:**

> A short angsty Jopper vignette from Joyce's POV, inspired by the quote from Winona in the LA Times interview with David where she said that she thinks Joyce would have gone to Chicago after graduating and was in Chicago during the (DNC) riots in 1968... but since Jonathan was born in 1967, I changed it up a bit for the sake of the timeline. 
> 
>  
> 
> _”I have this whole thing with Joyce that maybe she went to Chicago after graduating and got into the hippie thing. Maybe she was there in the Chicago riots.” - Winona Ryder_

The last image she had of Jim Hopper was burned into her memory: boarding the bus headed to Kentucky on a rainy September morning in 1965. Forcing a brave smile for her as she kissed him goodbye. Looking determined but scared, a raw bundle of nerves, shipping off to the great unknown in the jungles of Vietnam to fight a battle that Joyce couldn't agree with and wasn’t really sure either of them could fully understand.

They vowed to keep in touch, writing letters back and forth every week. First, from Ft. Knox, then special-training in California, until after eight long months, he was finally deployed. He was to spend no less than 12 months in-country. 

She remembered the apprehension she felt the first time she saw the postman delivering the mail on her block in the weeks after Hopper left, wondering if he would stop at her house. She remembered the excitement she felt when he hand-delivered an envelope with Hop’s distinctive scrawl across the front. Neither had really written letters before, except to their grandparents or for a school project, but they took to it swiftly and became fast sweetheart pen-pals. They had spent the summer leading up to his departure almost inseparable, and for the first few weeks apart, it practically killed Joyce to be so far away from him. She could tell he felt the same as his letters started to open up and reveal a side to her that she had never seen in him before. 

He told her about Ft. Knox; about the demoralizing buzz cut all the soldiers got on their first day there; his footlocker being raided for the pictures he kept of her and the cookies she sent; the exhausting day-to-day routine as he trained for combat. As time went on, he wrote about the friends he had made along the way to California and how he took to sharpshooting after all that time spent practicing with his grandfather’s rifle on the farm. He told her about his hopes to come home sooner rather than later, to see her pretty smile again. Eventually, he even admitted his darkest fears that he might not make it back at all.

The black ink of his words ran as Joyce’s tears hit each page while she read them over and over again. His letters were as sacred to her as if he were mailing her pages from his private journal, so she tucked them away for safekeeping along with their last Polaroid together in an old jewelry box she kept hidden under her bed.

The anticipation for each new letter quickly turned to anxiety when the days began to stretch out between them. Joyce finally felt a hint of relief once she finally started to receive his messages from Vietnam, though it only served to take the edge off her fear. Opening each note from him was like playing Russian Roulette. What news would this one bring? A year had nearly passed and much to her dismay, his letters had become brief and to the point. She would respond with pages and pages, hoping her tales of home and words of encouragement would provide him with the inspiration to stay hopeful and spur him to write back. But his replies had stopped pacing hers — he was holding back. Joyce assured herself it meant nothing, he just simply didn’t have the time to respond like she could.

As news from him slowed, she relied heavily on the papers and tv, trying to glean as much information as she could on the situation halfway ‘round the world. She knew where he had been posted, and so she kept her eyes and ears peeled for any mention of the small Vietnamese town in hopes she could piece together the puzzle of where he was and what he was doing.

Despite being a world away, Vietnam became a bleak constant in her small-town American life and she couldn’t escape it even if she wanted to. Radios played broadcasts with updates every hour on the hour. Each and every television set was tuned in and as the months progressed, they starting showing more and more horrifying images: wailing women clutching their lifeless babies; the devastated Vietnamese begging American soldiers for help only to be ignored; USAF planes spraying vast jungle with defoliant chemicals to suss out the enemy; carpet bombings. Hundreds of dead soldiers on both sides.

With every passing day, it seemed the entirety of Hawkins, Indiana couldn’t hold back their opinionated views. She eavesdropped as she waited on tables at her job at the diner on Main street, hearing hushed tales of brave soldiers dying face down in the mud in the name of freedom. The older townsfolk around her called it “serving their country” and “doing their part in the fight against those damn commies,” but she knew deep down that was wrong. All her friends knew it was wrong too, but it seemed like no one would speak up so she kept her views to herself. But Joyce knew there was no glory in the terror all those poor people in Vietnam were facing; what Hop was facing. With every day that passed without word from him, her heart grew black as night and filled with worry.

She remembered when the soldiers started visiting families in town to deliver the news and the stomach-churning sense of dread she felt when the town began posting the names of local boys missing in action or worse, dead. Her lab partner in junior year chemistry, Fred Larson, was the first person she recognized on that list. Next was Bob Newby’s older brother George, and then it was Karen’s turn when her cousin Randy was shot down piloting a helicopter over Hui.

This was not as simple as President Johnson had promised and the American stance on Vietnam could no longer be described as conflict. People were dying, and it wasn’t just the so-called "bad guys" that the news reported on… but innocent women and children, and brave men too. People she knew. People she cared about.

That was all the confirmation Joyce needed to know that they had been lied to. This was war.  


  


 

Hopper’s father was a veteran of both the second world war and Korea and was known around town to be a brooding and brutish man. Joyce knew how he felt about her -- Mr. Hopper never stood for his son's tomfoolery or how much time he spent with the little latchkey girl from across the way. She always tried her best to avoid him over the years, and yet she saw him more after Hop left than she ever did growing up. She made it her mission to visit the house across the street at least once a week, if only to check up on Mrs. Hopper and see if they had any news to share of their son, but it didn’t take long before Mr. Hopper grew tired of her constant pestering.

He broke down one late afternoon, a rare sight, pulling Joyce aside while Mrs. Hopper was busy preparing dinner. He said that every time Joyce stopped in to ask about James, it shook his wife out of her blissful state of ignorance. He couldn’t deal with two hysterical women on his hands; he could barely suffer one. 

Mr. Hopper told Joyce point blank that war was a time to fight, not a time to be exchanging lovers poems and purple prose. Her cheeks burned at his words, but she accepted the cold, hard truth, letting it shake her out of the desperate daydream she was trapped in, plunging her world in an inky blackness.  Joyce couldn’t tune reality out even though she tried to stay positive. Maybe it was because she felt so deeply connected to the war through Hop, but she struggled with being so far removed from it all. Hop’s old man was right though, letters would get them nowhere… But she couldn’t just sit around and watch either. She had to do something.

Her life from then on became demonstrations, protests, and sit-ins around the midwest. She worked to make just enough money to pay her way to the next one and the next. Sometimes she would drag Karen with her when she wasn’t busy playing house with Ted, but most times she would hitch a ride or even go alone, fighting to make her voice be heard over the crowd, despite the bleak futility of it all.

She thought Hop would be proud of her, doing her part to end the war and bring him home. He’d been deployed almost a year by then, and it was the only way she knew to pass the time without writing him any more. Any day now, she was expecting to see him walking up her driveway in uniform. A bouquet in his hands and that dumb, goofy grin on his face, ready to drop down on one knee for her. It was a vision she kept to herself, to hold out hope that their reunion would be a happy one. That all her wishing and hoping, waiting and praying hadn’t been in vain.

One cold, December morning in 1967, Joyce dropped by the Hopper household with a tray of fresh baked cookies for Mrs. Hopper when she unceremoniously found out from his father that their dear, brave James had enlisted for another tour. One more year volunteered; doing his part to serve his country.

It cut Joyce to the bone to think that he couldn’t even be bothered to tell her himself. Not a phone call or a telegram, not even a goddamned postcard. And right before Christmas too. She'd never felt more heartbroken in her short nineteen years. 

Of course, Lonnie Byers wasted no time picking up the fragmented pieces of her heart. He had been hanging around the fringes since high school had finished a year and half previous, trying to score a date with her ever since Hop was deployed, but she held fast. After the news had spread through the town that Hopper wasn’t coming back any time soon, Lonnie swooped in. He took every opportunity to let her know he had changed since their little fling in high school, and would she give him another shot? Besides, he told her, he had a record so it wasn’t like he would be drafted and leave her like Hopper did — as if that was a selling point.

When Joyce’s mother couldn’t take the moping any longer, she sat her daughter down for a talk, one they'd had several times over the last year. There were plenty of fish in the sea. She was wasting her life away. It was time to move on from the Hopper boy. 

Joyce relented eventually, if only to appease her mother. What was the worst that could happen anyway? She quickly found the solace she needed in Lonnie’s arms and his hard and fast lifestyle appealed to her reckless spirit now. She no longer wanted to be the good girl everyone wanted her to be; instead she indulged herself at the bottom of a bottle every night, partying with Lonnie and his group of friends, making herself forget that she had ever promised to wait for someone else.

They had only been dating for a few weeks when she found herself in the family way, andwell, that was that - her fate was sealed. She didn’t know what else she could do, but tell Lonnie and accept his hasty marriage proposal to “make an honest woman” out of her.

Joyce had to hand it to him; Lonnie took his new role as a father very seriously. Within a week of finding out, he had secured a steady job at the local mechanics and had put an offer in on a sweet three bedroom rancher on the outskirts of Hawkins. She quit her waitressing job, and they were married at the courthouse before she started showing. By the time baby Jonathan had arrived in December of ’67, they were rushing headlong into a state of marital bliss she never thought possible with a man like Lonnie Byers.

But Joyce learned that bliss was fleeting and it wasn’t soon after Jonathan turned six months old that she realized her husband's devotion was waning at the sight of any miniskirt that passed by. Soon, they were bickering all the time, arguing about every little thing, from fidelity to money. Lonnie spent less and less time at home, saying he needed to find a new job to make ends meet, maybe in the next town over. Most nights, he was gone, leaving her alone with the baby.

She spent those long, lonely nights chain smoking by herself at the kitchen table, letting her mind wander to Hop and where he could be or if he was feeling lonely too. News of his whereabouts had slowed to a trickle and it'd been months since she last heard anything. Was he still fighting? Would he ever come home? Was she a fool for thinking they could’ve ever been something more? Despite herself, every night after she put Jonathan down to sleep, she would pull his worn letters out and reread them over and over, letting herself get lost in the hopes and dreams she had built up for herself two short years ago, until they became her diversion from the cage she trapped herself in.

  
                                                                              

 

Joyce heard about the protests in Chicago that August, and immediately felt a primal urge in her soul to go. It had been almost a year since her last sit-in and she felt like this could be the one. It might change the course of history and end the war in Vietnam, and she wanted to be there to see it happen. She owed it to all the men and women who were caught up fighting in this fabricated war, but most of all, she owed it to Hop.

When Lonnie found out, he put his foot down. Her job was to stay home to take care of their family and put all that Vietnam nonsense behind her. She briefly considered packing up baby Jonathan and taking him with her against Lonnie’s wishes. After all, the news was showing footage of the protests with families and children walking around, but she knew it wasn’t very responsible to put herself in an unpredictable crowd alone with a baby. She obliged Lonnie, but only for a short while.

There was only one day left at the convention and she wasn’t about to miss it. Joyce was stubborn to her core, and Lonnie knew as much when he married her, so he would just have to get over it one last time. That afternoon she grabbed her handmade sign, "Make Love - Not War" painted with hearts and flowers on the front, and "Johnson is a war criminal!" scrawled on the back. She pulled her long hair back in a low ponytail and threw on her favorite white fringed crop top and a pair of short-shorts to stay cool in the late August heat. Double checking Jonathan had enough bottles prepared, she peppered his chubby cheeks with kisses, reassuring the babbling baby she would be home tomorrow even though she knew he didn’t understand. It was the first time she’d be away from him for longer than a few hours and new-mother nervousness aside, she was confident he would be fine for just one night with his father.

But when she tried to kiss her husband goodbye as she was headed out the door, he pulled away. Joyce shrugged it off and told him casually she would be back tomorrow while she rummaged through her purse. It was obvious he was disgusted with her, but she didn’t care, she knew deep down that this was something she needed to do.

“I’m your husband and I’m telling you to stay here,” he said firmly, once he realized where she was going.

“I’m not a dog, Lonnie,” she spat back at him as she emptied out her purse on the table. Where were those damn car keys? “It’s 1968, I don’t need your permission to do this.”

“I thought you moved on from this bullshit?” Lonnie growled at her as she refilled her purse and searched the living room for the car keys, finding them wedged between the sofa cushions. He followed and tried to reach for them, but she was tiny and quick, dodging out of his grasp. He stayed in the doorway to the kitchen, spinning to face her, raising his voice. “Don’t you dare take my car and leave me with the kid!”

“Lonnie!” she shouted over him. “It's only a demonstration, I promise I will be home tomorrow morning. It’s just for one night. You can take care of your son for one night, right?”

Jonathan whimpered in the crib between them, no longer mesmerized by the flashing colors of the Flintstones on the TV. Lonnie picked him up in an attempt to comfort his son and infuse Joyce with guilt at the same time.

“You’re a horrible mother, you know. Abandoning your family for what? To protest some fucking war on the other side of the goddamn world? It doesn’t even affect us!”

Joyce ignored his calculated low-blow and threw her purse over her shoulder, headed for the door.

“It affects me, Lonnie,” she said, her face turning red as she told him. She wanted her next words to cut like a knife. “I don’t expect you to understand why this is so important to me.”

“Oh, I understand all right, but you need to get over it, babe,” Lonnie was pleading with her now, as best as he could. He looked pitiful standing there in their mess of a living room, holding Jonathan awkwardly like it was someone else’s child. “You know he’s gone, right? He’s not coming back.”

Lonnie didn’t even have to say his name.

Joyce felt sick, realizing her actions were speaking louder than her words at that moment. 

“He’s my best friend -- _was_ my best friend,” she affirmed to both her and her husband. She stood firm behind her stance at the front door, hand on the doorknob, ready to leave. “And I am not giving up on him. Not until he comes home.”

“Don’t you think Hopper would be home by now if he didn’t want to be there? He stayed for a reason, Joyce!”

She wouldn’t hear it. 

She couldn’t.

“He had no choice!” Her voice matched Lonnie’s — angry, broken.  Lonnie just shook his head at her, bouncing Jonathan on his hip, trying to distract the baby from their fight. He hated it when Jonathan cried.

“You know, you’re a real piece of work if that is what you honestly believe. He volunteered, Joyce.”

“He had no choice,” she repeated, tears burning at the back of her throat now.

“He made his decision to leave Hawkins, and he’s not coming back," Lonnie sneered. "He chose Vietnam over you, and you’re not going to change that by parading around downtown Chicago half-naked with a shitty poster board sign like all the other goddamn hippies. Hopper dug his grave, so let him lie in it. You have a family to think about now, in case you forgot." 

And that's when it sunk in for him.  Sure, she had the house and the family with Lonnie, but it was apparent that a part of her wished it was the other man she was living the dream with.

Lonnie was trying not to choke up when he asked her, "You're still in love with him, aren't you?"

“Stop, just shut up!” 

Joyce could feel the rage building up inside her. Her husband was hitting the nail on the head, but she would be damned if she ever admitted it. Her fingers fidgeted at her side, spinning the wedding band around her ring finger as she contemplated his words. If she left, it would be an admission of guilt, even if she didn’t outright admit it. Yes, of course she still loved Hopper. He was her first love and a part of her wanted to hold on to that forever, no matter the repercussions. But she knew that if she stayed, stuck to her commitments, she would never forgive herself. She was dead-set on this. No longer content to play the happy little housewife her husband wanted her to be.

Lonnie shook her from her thoughts, “If you do this…” His eyes flashed something she had never seen in him before. Panic. Anger. Sadness.

“If I do this, what?” she challenged him. “Finish your threat, Lonnie.”

“You make this choice, you can’t ever take it back,” Lonnie looked like she was about to rip his heart right out of his chest as the words left his mouth. All the lonely nights she had spent crying herself to sleep flashed in front of her eyes.

“Good,” her voice wavered, heavy with the weight of what she was about to say to him. Now she was proving a point. She would not allow Lonnie to control her. “Maybe I don’t want to take it back.”

She opened the door to leave, but Lonnie’s arm shot out to slam it on her before she could step outside. “You’re not leaving this house, Joyce!” he yelled.

“Like hell I’m not,” she yelled back, pulling on the door with all her strength, yanking it out of his grasp. Joyce ran outside as Jonathan started to wail in Lonnie’s arms, reaching out for her as she passed. Silently apologizing to her son in her head, she was relieved that he would be too young to remember this when he was older. She threw a glance back to her family, watching her from the porch as she started the car.

“I won’t forget this, Joyce!”

She could barely hear Lonnie yelling behind her over the roar of the engine. The beat up old Ford growled in the driveway, spitting rocks behind her in response to his outburst. That was when Joyce caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview, cheeks flushed, eyes dark with fury. Tears spilling down her cheeks. Lonnie could think whatever he wanted of her now, but her intentions were good; she knew that much.

What she didn’t know was the violence she was headed into at the protest in Chicago. She would take a glass bottle to the back of the head before the end of the night, bleeding, caught up in the crush of people fighting back against the police on Michigan Avenue.

She didn’t know her choice to leave would drive a permanent wedge between her and Lonnie; that he would hold this singular moment over her head for the rest of their relationship.

Joyce didn’t even know that Hopper was already back stateside, or that he knew she was Mrs. Lonnie Byers now. 

She didn't know that Hop had already moved on.


End file.
